Bible Texts - the Good and the Bad

It would be extremely beneficial at this
point if we could simply produce the original autographs
for examination. This would greatly simplify the
operation of establishing correctly the New Testament
text. But this simply cannot happen. It has long been
acknowledged by scholars that we no longer have the
"originals." They have long since passed from
the scene. This is due to the fact that scribes were
known to have destroyed worn out MSS after they had
copied them. Apparently the early church valued the words
of the original more than the original itself. Therefore,
the readings of the originals must be preserved with us
somewhere, or else God's words have "passed
away" which we surely know, from the Scriptural
record, cannot happen. (Psalms 12:6, 7 and Matthew
24:35). We must review the witnesses of the Bible record
which have come to us through history. We will be
required to keep two things in mind:

There is a marked disagreement between the two
basic families of readings.

Due to the truth above, we must remember our
spiritual considerations as well as historical.
Remember, the Bible is like no other book. All
other books are written and then cast adrift on
the sea of time; this is not the case with the
Bible. We must remember that God had His
hand in its inception and will be seen to have
His hand in its journey through history to the
present. It must also be remembered that just as
God will be active in its preservation, Satan
will be active in attempting to disrupt or
destroy it.

The "hard" evidence at hand
today available for our examination consists of three
groups:

The Copies

Copies - Since there are no
originals, every record of Scripture will be a
copy. Copies are divided into three groups:

Miniscules - These are by far
the most numerous of extant copies which we
possess. Miniscules in Greek are like the lower
case letters of our alphabet. The oldest copies
of this type are papyrus MSS which were sewn
together into a roll or scroll. Papyrus was an
inexpensive paper somewhat like newsprint. Some
were also written on vellum scrolls. Vellum is
made from animal skins. This was used because of
its durability although it was more expensive
than papyrus.

In early copies the words were written end to end
with no space in between. Words like God, Son,
Father were abbreviated in this manner: God - gd,
Son - sn, Father - ftr. Later MSS separated the
words for ease of reading. An example is shown
here:
"No-man-hath-seen-gd-at-any-time-the-only-begotten-sn-
which-is-in-the-bosom-of-the-ftr-he-hath-declared-him."
(John 1:18).

Some miniscules were composed in book form
instead of a scroll. These are known as codice
(plural). Codex is the singular form. These also
were written on either papyrus or vellum. In some
cases, all that remains of a scroll or codex are
fragments.

Majuscules or Uncials -- These
are equivalent to the upper case letters of our
alphabet. In the same verse as above, John 1: 18,
letters of our alphabet would appear in this
manner in an uncial MSS:

Majuscules MSS exist in fewer numbers than
miniscules and do not appear until the 4th
Century.

Lectionaries -- These are equivalent to
the "responsive readings" found in the
back of today's hymnals. Due to the shortage of
copies of Scripture, lectionaries were used to
put key verses into the hands of the people. In
many cases their readings are very early, i.e.,
closer to the originals.

The Versions

Our second group of Biblical
witnesses are the ancient versions. God
chose to write the New Testament in Greek, but He
did not choose to keep it in Greek only. The
early Greek MSS were translated into other
languages in order that the true Word of God
could be put into the hands of people in other
lands. Some versions such as the Peshitto (or
Peschito), a Syrian translation, and the Old
Latin Vulgate (vulgate means "vulgar,"
i.e., "common") are actually older than
our oldest uncial MSS. The Peshitto was
translated from the Greek in about 150 A.D. The
Old Latin Vulgate was translated about 157 A.D.

Other well known versions are the Gothic,
Sahidic, Bohairic, and Coptic.

The Church Fathers

Our third group is the early church
fathers. These are the men who led the
Christians in the first few centuries after the
New Testament was completed. We have record of
their early sermons, books, and commentaries.
They will be able to provide us with much
information on disputed passages. Many may have
seen the original autographs.

Here we now have our three sources of
information. They are copies, versions, and church
fathers. These three groups combined to give us in
excess of 5,250 witnesses.9 Over 3,000 of
these are Greek MSS.10 With this many extant
MSS, versions, and the fathers for reference, we should
have little trouble determining the Greek text of the
original New Testament autographs.

Taking Sides

These surviving
witnesses of the Greek New Testament text which we now
possess are found to generally fall into two groups, or
"texts." This is where we begin to find some
major problems. We find that these two texts disagree
consistently concerning the major doctrines of the Bible.
They are found to disagree on readings concerning the
virgin birth of Jesus Christ, the blood atonement,
Christ's second coming, the deity of Christ, and many
other fundamental Christian doctrines. It is for this
reason that we must examine our witnesses to determine if
their testimony is accurate (God's text) or if they are
fraudulently misleading (Satan's text). Remember our
ground rules!

The Good Guys

The first of these two
texts which we will examine is the Majority Text. This is
the text which will be found to uphold the major
Christian doctrines which are so vital to our fundamental
beliefs.

The Majority Text has been known
throughout history by several names. It has been known as
the Byzantine Text, the Imperial Text, the Traditional
Text, and the Reformation Text, as well as the Majority
Text. This text culminates in the Textus Receptus or
"Received Text" which is the basis for the King
James Bible, which we know also as the Authorized
Version.

I do not desire to add
one more name to the list, but in the interest of finding
the most accurate term to describe this text, and due to
its universal reception by orthodox Christians through
history, we shall refer to this text as the
"Universal Text."

Dr. Hills justifies this choice:
"There is now greater reason than ever to believe
that the Byzantine Text, which is found in the vast
majority of the Greek New Testament manuscripts and
which was used well-nigh universally throughout
the Greek Church for many centuries, is a faithful
reproduction of the original New Testament and is the
divinely appointed standard by which all New Testament
manuscripts and all divergent readings must be
judged."11 (Emphasis mine.)

We describe this text
with the term "Universal," because it
represents the majority of extant MSS which represent the
original autographs. Professor Hodges of Dallas
Theological Seminary explains, "The manuscript
tradition of an ancient book will, under any but the most
exceptional conditions, multiply in a reasonably regular
fashion with the result that the copies nearest the
autograph will normally have the largest number of
descendants."12

Even Dr. Hort is forced to admit this as
Professor Hodges points out in his footnote, "This
truism was long ago conceded (somewhat grudgingly) by
Hort. A theoretical presumption indeed remains that a
majority of extant documents is more likely to represent
a majority of ancestral documents at each state of
transmission than vice versa."13

Professor Hodges concludes, "Thus
the Majority text, upon which the King James Version is
based, has in reality the strongest claim possible to be
regarded as an authentic representation of the original
text. This claim is quite independent of any shifting
consensus of scholarly judgment about its readings and is
based on the objective reality of its dominance in the
transmissional history of the New Testament text."14

Any corruption to the New Testament text
would obviously have to begin after the original
autographs were completed, or there would be no
originals to corrupt! If the originals and the first
corruptions of those originals multiplied at the same
rate, the correct text would always be found in the
majority of MSS. Add to this the fact that the orthodox
Christian Church would reject the corruptions and refuse
to copy them, and we would find that the correct text
would be in the vast majority, universally accepted as
authentic, while the corrupt text would be represented by
an elite minority. These are exactly the circumstances
which exist in the MS evidence available today! Fuller
records, "Miller has shown that the Traditional Text
predominated in the writings of the Church Fathers in
every age from the very first."15

The Universal Text is that which travels
north from Jerusalem to Antioch, the "gateway to
Europe," heading for England. Upon arrival in
England it would be ready for translation into the
language through which God has chosen to spread His
Gospel - English.

From Antioch (remember our study of
Antioch), the Universal Text was sent up into Europe.
From there it spread through Syria and Europe through its
translation into the Syrian Peshitto version and the Old
Latin Vulgate. There are still 350 copies of the Peshitto
in existence today as a testimony to this widespread
usage in the years since 150 A.D.

The "Original"
Vulgate

The Old Latin Vulgate was used by the
Christians in the churches of the Waldenses, Gauls,
Celts, Albigenses, and other fundamental groups
throughout Europe. This Latin version became so used and
beloved by orthodox Christians and was in such common use
by the common people that it assumed the term
"Vulgate" as a name. Vulgate comes from
"vulgar" which is the Latin word for
"common." It was so esteemed for its
faithfulness to the deity of Christ and its accurate
reproductions of the originals, that these early
Christians let Jerome's Roman Catholic translation
"sit on the shelf." Jerome's translation was
not used by the true Biblical Christians for almost a
millenium after it was translated from corrupted
manuscripts by Jerome in 380 A.D. Even then it only came
into usage due to the death of Latin as a common
language, and the violent, wicked persecutions waged
against true believers by Pope Gregory IX during his
reign from 1227 to 1242 A.D. 16

Crooked Tactics

The Old Latin Vulgate had come into
existence no later than 157 A.D. The Latin version of
Jerome, translated by order of the Roman Catholic Church,
was published in about 380 A.D. It was rejected by real
Christians until approximately 1280 A.D. The Roman
Catholic Church chose the name "Vulgate" or
"Common" for Jerome's translation in an attempt
to deceive loyal Christians into thinking that it was the
true common Bible of the people. This is the same tactic
used by the New Scofield Reference Bible (1967) and the
Common Bible (1973). The former claims to be an
Authorized King James Version, when in fact it is not
(check the margin). The latter's name falsely implies
that it is the Bible in "common" use, when in
fact the Bible in common use is the Authorized
Version of 1611! It would seem that such deception lacks
a little in Christian ethics, if not honesty.

It is plain to see that the Universal
Text has not only been universally accepted by the
faithful Christians down through the centuries, but it
was responsible for keeping the Roman Catholic Church
contained to southern Italy for years. It was not until
the Roman Catholic Church successfully eliminated this
Book through persecutions, torture, Bible burnings, and
murder that it could capture Europe in its web of
superstitious paganism.

Perhaps we should learn a lesson. Where
the Universal Text of the King James Bible reigns, God
blesses. Once it is eliminated for a less
"clean" text, God withdraws His blessing. Oh,
that America could but look at what has happened to
England since the corrupt Revised Version was published!
Perversion has been the father of every
"revision" since, on either side of the
Atlantic. Yes, the sun began to set on the British Empire
in 1904, when the British Foreign Bible Society changed
from the pure Textus Receptus to the Egyptian
text collated by Eberhard Nestle.17

The Bad Guys

The other text which we must investigate
is the Minority Text. This is the text which is found to
be untrue to the beloved doctrines of Scripture such as
the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the blood
atonement, the Trinity, and others. This is also the text
which is used in every translation of the Bible since the
Revised Version of 1881.

Its two outstanding trademarks in
history are that orthodox Christianity has never
used it and that the Roman Catholic Church has militantly
(read that "bloodily") supported it. We shall
say more about this matter later.

The Minority Text is also known as the
Egyptian Text, (remember our study of Egypt), the
Hesychian Text, and the Alexandrian Text (remember our
study of Alexandria), which was the basis for the
critical Greek Text of Brooke Foss Wescott and Fenton
John Anthony Hort. The Wescott and Hort Text of 1881 was
collated with Weymouth's third edition and Tischendorf's
eighth edition by Eberhard Nestle in 1898 to become what
is known as the Nestle's Greek New Testament.18
This is the text used in all "modern"
translations.

The most notable MSS in the text consist
of a handful of uncial MSS of the 4th and 5th Centuries.
These uncials have been found to be error ridden and
untrustworthy and found even to disagree among
themselves.

One of these MSS is called Sinaiticus
and is represented by the first letter of the Hebrew
alphabet, Aleph. This MS from all outward appearances
looks very beautiful. It is written in book form (codex)
on vellum. It contains 147 1/2 leaves. The pages are
15" by 13 1/2" with four columns of 48 lines
per page. It contains many spurious books such as the
"Shepherd of Hermes," the "Epistle of
Barnabas," and even the "Didache."19
This MS has survived time well, but being in good
physical shape by no means makes its contents
trustworthy.

The great Greek scholar, Dr. Scrivener,
points this out in his historic work A Full Collation
of the Codex Sinaiticus. He speaks concerning
correctional alterations made to the MS: "The Codex
is covered with such alterations...brought in by at least
ten different revisors, some of them systematically
spread over every page, others occasional or limited to
separated portions of the MS, many of these being
contemporaneous with the first writer, but for the
greater part belonging to the sixth or seventh
century."20

Dr. Alfred Martin echos this,
"Aleph shows theworks of ten
different correctors down through the centuries."21

The corrections are so obvious as to
induce Dr. Burgon to comment therefore on Dr.
Tischendorf's willingness to exalt this badly marred MS:
"With the blindness proverbially ascribed to
parental love, Tischendorf follows Aleph, though the
carelessness that reigns over that manuscript is visible
to all who examine it."22

May I note here that
Dr. Tischendorf was the discoverer of Codex Sinaiticus.
He found it in St. Cathrine's Monestary on Mt. Sinai in
February of 1859. It was, of all places, in the wastebasket!"23

Since this MS was of the 4th Century,
Tischendorf, deceived by the outmoded philosophy
"older is better," immediately altered his 7th
edition of the Greek New Testament in over 3,500 places.
He had claimed that this 7th edition (1856-59) had been
perfect and could not be superceded. His 8th edition
(1865-72), based primarily on Aleph, was apparently 3,500
times more perfect!

False Witness from Rome

Another MS belonging to this family is
called Vaticanus. It is often referred to by the letter
"B." As its name implies, it is in the Vatican
library at Rome (remember our enemy). No one knows when
it was placed in the Vatican library, but its existence
was first made known in 1841. This MS is also in the form
of a book and written on vellum. It contains 759 pages
which are 10" by 10 1/2" with three columns of
41 lines per page.

It seems suspicious indeed that a MS
possessed by the Roman Catholic Church omits the portion
of the book of Hebrews which exposes the "mass"
as totally useless. (Please read Hebrews 10:10-12). The
"mass" in conjunction with the false doctrine
of purgatory go hand-in-hand to form a perpetual money
making machine for Rome. Without one or the other, the
Roman Catholic Church would go broke! It also omits
portions of Scripture telling of the creation (Genesis),
the prophetic details of the crucifixion (Psalms 22),
and, of course, the portion which prophesies of the
destruction of Babylon (Rome), the great whore of
Revelation chapter 17.

Vaticanus, though intact physically, is
found to be of very poor literary quality. Dr. Martin
declares, "'B' exhibits numerous places where the
scribe has written the same word or phrase twice in
succession."25 Dr. J. Smythe states,
"From one end to the other, the whole manuscript has
been traveled over by the pen of some...scribe of about
the tenth century."26

If Vaticanus was considered a
trustworthy text originally, the mass of corrections and
scribal changes obviously render its testimony highly
suspicious and questionable.

The corrupt and unreliable nature of these
two MSS is best summed up by one who has thoroughly
examined them, John W. Burgon: "The impurity of the
text exhibited by these codices is not a question of
opinion but fact...In the Gospels alone, Codex B
(Vatican) leaves out words or whole clauses no less than
1,491 times. It bears traces of careless transcriptions
on every page. Codex Sinaiticus abounds with errors of
the eye and pen to an extent not indeed unparalleled, but
happily rather unusual in documents of first-rate
importance. On many occasions 10, 20, 30, 40 words are
dropped through very carelessness. Letters and words,
even whole sentences, are frequently written twice over,
or begun and immediately cancelled; while that gross
blunder whereby a clause is omitted because it happens to
end in the same words as the clause preceding, occurs no
less than 115 times in the New Testament."27

If we are to be thorough and
discriminatory in our evaluation of the true New
Testament text, then we must not - we cannot -
overlook these facts.

How did these MSS come into being? How
did it happen that they should be beautiful to the eye,
yet within contain such vile and devastating corruptions?
It seems that these uncial MSS along with the papyrus MSS
included in this category all resulted from a revision of
the true, or Universal Text. This revision was enacted in
Egypt (remember our study of Egypt) by Egyptian
scribes!

Prior to documenting this statement, it
will be needful to identify several of the uncial and
papyrus MSS which will be referred to in the
documentation. These are uncial manuscripts A, B, C, D,
and Aleph. Also included are the Chester Beatty Papyri,
designated as P45, P46, P47, and the Bodmer Papyri,
designated as P66 and P75.

The Local Mess

It seems that this type of text was a local
text of Alexandria, Egypt (remember our study of
Alexandria) of which Eusebius made fifty copies to
fulfill a request by Emperor Constantine. Unfortunately
Eusebius turned to the education center in Egypt and got
a "scholarly revision" instead of turning to
Antioch for the pure text which was universally accepted
by the true Christians.

Why would Eusebius choose Alexandria
over Antioch? Primarily because he was a great admirer of
Origen, an Egyptian scholar. Origen, though once exalted
by modern day Christianity as a trustworthy authority,
has since been found to have been a heretic who
interpreted the Bible in the light of Greek philosophy
(remember our study of Athens). He propagated the heresy
that Jesus Christ was a "created" God.28
This is a false doctrine clung to by Jehovah's Witnesses
of our day, who strangely enough get their teaching from
the corrupt Alexandrian Text's rendition of John 1:1-5
and John 3:13, a corruption which Origen is responsible
for when he revised the Universal Text to read in
agreement with his personal heresy!

Origen himself said, "The
Scriptures are of little use to those who understand them
as they are written."29 Which explains
Bishop Marsh's statement, "Whenever therefore
grammatical interpretation produced a sense which in Origen's
opinion was irrational or impossible, in other words
was irrational or impossible according to the philosophy
which Origen had learned at Alexandria, he then departs
from the literal."30 (Emphasis mine.) Dr.
Adam Clarke claims also that Origen was the first person
to teach purgatory.31

Total Corruption

Where did this "Local Text,"
from which all new Bible translations since 1881 are
rendered, originate? Let us see what evidence scholars
have unearthed in a search to discover its source.

Kurt Aland "proposes that the text
of P75 and B represent a revision of a local text of
Egypt which was enforced as the dominant text in that
particular ecclesiastical province."32

Professor Hodges assures us,
"Already scholars are willing to concede a common
ancestry for P75 and B. We can postulate here that this
common ancestor and P66 meet even further back in the
stream of transmission...It is quite possible, then that
all three manuscripts go back ultimately to a single
parent manuscript in which this emendation was originally
made."33

Dean Burgon remarks, "As for the
origin of these two curiosities, it can perforce only be
divined from their contents, that they exhibit fabricated
texts is demonstrable. No amount of honest copying -
preserved in for any number of centuries - could by
possibility have resulted in two such documents.
Separated from one another in actual date by 50, perhaps
by 100 years, they must needs have branched all from a
common corrupt ancestor, and straightway become exposed
to fresh depraving influence."34

Dr. Edward Hills concludes, "The
best way to explain this situation is to suppose that it
represents an intentional neglect of the Traditional Text
on the part of those ancient Alexandrian scribes who kept
revising the text of Paprus 75 until finally they created
the B text."35

He also states Aland's opinion:
"Aland thinks it possible that the Chester Beatty
Papyri also came from this same place."36

That tedious lawyer and former Supreme
Court Justice, Philip Mauro, has aptly determined,
"It should be observed, before we proceed with this
question, that the agreeing testimony (where they do
agree) of the Vatican and Sinaitic MSS cannot be properly
regarded as having the force of two independent
witnesses; for there are sufficient evidences both
internal and external to warrant the conclusion that
these two Codices are very closely related, that they
are, in fact, copies of the same original, itself a very
corrupt transcript of the New Testament."37

He also states, "It is admitted on
all hands that the Text used as the basis of the
Authorized Version correctly represents a Text known to
have been widely (if not everywhere) in use as early as
the second century (for the Peschito and Old Latin
Versions, corroborated by patristic quotations afford
ample proof of that). On the other hand, it is now known
that the two Codices we are discussing represent anything
but copies of a bad original, made worse in the
copying."38

It also seems generally agreed that this
Local Text was used for a basis of the 50 Bibles which
Eusebius supplied to Constantine.

The noted Greek scholar, A.T. Roberson,
states, "Constantine himself ordered fifty Greek
Bibles from Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, for the
Churches of Constantinople. It is quite possible that
Aleph and B are two of these fifty, though the actual
copying was probably done in Egypt or by Egyptian
scribes."39

Gregory adds, "This manuscript
(Vaticanus) is supposed, as we have seen, to have come
from the same place as the Sinaitic Manuscript. I have
said that these two show connections with each other and
that they would suit very well as a pair of the fifty
manuscripts written at Caesarea for Constantine the
Great."40

To which Burgon and Miller testify,
"Constantine applied to Eusebius for fifty handsome
copies, amongst which it is not impossible that the
manuscripts B and Aleph were to be actually found."41

Dr. David Fuller finalizes, "Age
alone cannot prove that a manuscript is correct. B and
Aleph probably owe their preservation to the fact that
they were written on vellum, whereas most other documents
of that period were written on papyrus. Many students,
including Tischendorf and Hort, have thought them to be
two of the fifty copies which Eusebius had prepared under
the order of Constantine for use in the churches of
Constantinople. They are no doubt beautiful manuscripts,
but their texts show scribal carelessness. B exhibits
numerous places where the scribe has written the same
word or phrases twice in succession. Aleph shows the
marks of ten different correctors down through the
centuries. Burgon's excoriation of Wescott and Hort's
method cannot be considered too strong in the light of
the facts concerning the character of these two
manuscripts."42 Who could be responsible
for the corruption of the universally accepted text of
the New Testament?

Wilkenson reports, "Beginning
shortly after the death of the apostle John, four names
stand out in prominence whose teaching contributed both
to the victorious heresy and to the final issuing of
manuscripts of a corrupt New Testament. These names are:
1. Justin Martyr; 2. Tatian; 3. Clement of Alexandria;
and 4. Origen."43

The Local Alexandrian text fell into
disuse about 500 A.D. while the original Universal Text
was spreading true Christianity throughout Europe.

Hoskier reports this in his statement:
"Those who accept the Wescott and Hort text are
basing their accusations of untruth as to the Gospellists
upon an Egyptian revision current 200 to 450 A.D. and
abandoned between 500 to 1881, merely revised in our day
and stamped as genuine."44

So we see that once a pure copy of the
Universal Text had been carried down into Egypt, it was
recopied. During the process of this recopying, it was
revised by men who did not revere it as truly the Word of
God. This text was examined by the critical eye of Greek
philosophy and Egyptian morals. These men saw nothing
wrong with putting the Book in subjection to their
opinion instead of their opinion being in subjection to
the Book. This process produced a text which was
local to the educational center of Alexandria, Egypt.
This text went no farther than southern Italy where the
Roman Church found its unstable character perfect for
overthrowing the true Word of God which was being used
universally by the true Christians.

At this point, I believe it will be
helpful to study the ruthless Roman Catholic Church to
more clearly understand her part in all new translations
of the Bible since 1881.

208 pages The Bible has two histories. One is of God preserving His words through His people. The other is of the devil using Roman Catholic "scholars" to pervert God’s words and give us corrupt modern Bibles.

112 pages They're saying Jesus used the Septuagint. But what they really want is to add something to your Bible.

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